so high, or exposed their charms so lavishly as the first; no melo-dramatic heroines ever ran so madly after the little god, showed such ridiculous affection and such absurd sorrow as the second; and, for the third, take up Homer himself, or Flaxman, and then say how poor were Canova's notion's compared to the poet's verse and our own countryman's sketches. From such productions let us turn at once to his latter works, his Pauline, his mother of Buonaparte, his Endymion, his recumbent Magdalen, and there can be no need to say another word about the affectation of his early and the comparative simplicity of his concluding works."

Thus changed, and truly following nature as a model, Canova gave a new impulse to Italian sculpture, and infused fresh life into the expiring arts of Rome. From the time of Angiolo, the artists of Europe had been content to be his copyists, or feeble imitators of the antique; but Canova studied in the same school that Phidias, Praxiteles, and Lysippus did, and hence, instead of imitating he rivalled them. And yet with all his originality of conception, he was ambitious to imitate the antique so far as to attempt to restore, by his own chisel, those splendid efforts of Grecian art, which are lost to the world, and known only in history. More than fifty of his groups and statues are from heathen history, and bear the names of works of the same nature said to have been executed by the rival masters of antiquity. We find them called, Apollo crowning himself; the Death of Priam; Procession of Trojan matrons; Briseis delivered to the Heraids; Venus coming out of the bath; Statue of

Endymion, of Hector, of Paris, &c., &c., and a great many more of the gods and heroes of old.

He executed a large number of historical and religious works, but in so doing, he was obliged to compete with older masters, and divide the admiration of his productions, with the works of Raffaelle and others which are scattered in great profusion over the continent, and ornament the churches, palaces, and baronial halls of Britain. When he drew from a living model, nothing could excel the truth and beauty with which he clothed his figures, and endowed them with all the graces of classic elegance. It has been remarked that his statues of the Buonaparte family, will ever be striking monuments of his genius, and none can look upon the majesty of Napoleon, the matronly gravity of his mother, and the full voluptuous beauty of his sister Pauline, without feeling that they only need, as was said of Angiolo's Venus, but the last breath of inspiration to make the marble mass start into life.

One of the finest of the sculptures of Canova, of a religious character, is a group upon a monument erected to the memory of the Archduchess Christine, of Austria. In this splendid group are nine figures, all of the natural size, which are made emblematical of the triumph of Virtue. Another fine group, representing Hercules destroying his children with arrows, and generally called the "Infuriate," attests the great genius of Canova. His statue of Religion, represented in the cut on the next page, may also rank among the best of his later works. The fitness of sculpture, or indeed of any art, in illustrating this highest and holiest feeling of our nature, has been questioned; but we cannot see why the

sculptor or the painter may not with propriety be allowed to imbody the creations of his fancy in marble or on the canvass, and portray in the

Statue of Religion.

character of a goddess, or a thing for reverence, that which, more than all other causes combined, has in all ages fostered their respective callings

The splendid statue represented on the opposite page, is about twenty-five feet in height. On the head of the figure is a tiara, bearing in front a triangle or symbol of the trinity. One hand points to Heaven, while the other rests upon a medallion, on which is sculptured the head of the Apostle Peter. Her left arm supports a cross, and upon the columnar pedestal of the medallion, are the tables of the Mosaic law, and the precepts of the Gospel. This statue was intended for a temple he proposed to erect near his birth-place, but death frustrated his design Canova died in 1822, aged sixty-five years.

CHAPTER IV.

English Sculpture-Cibber-Rysbrach-Scheemaker-Roubillac-Flaxman-His Shield of Achilles-Bailey and Westmacott-Chantrey-Thorwalsden-French Sculpture-Jean Goujon-Fountain of Nymphs-Jean de Bologne-Jupiter Pluvius-Pierre Tacca-Daughter of Louis Philippe-State of the Art in the United States

In England, few native sculptors appeared, till the time of Flaxman and Chantrey. The first artist of note in this line, who made England his residence, was Gabriel Cibber, a German; and from the fact that he went there when quite young, and spent his days and talents in that country, England claims him as her own. At what precise time he flourished, we are unable to determine, but as he was employed soon after his arrival to embellish the London monument, which was erected in commemoration of the

great conflagration of that city in 1666, this period may reasonably be assigned as the time. He was employed in many other works of a public character, especially in Westminster abbey and the palace at Windsor. He executed two statues for the insane hospital, which have been pronounced "foremost in conception and second in execution, among all the productions of English sculpture."

Rysbrach, a Flemmish sculptor, succeeded Cibber. He visited England in 1720, and first modelled in clay to show his skill. The Earl of Northampton sat to him for his bust, which he modelled with so much truth, that his services were afterward in constant requisition. Gibbs, a celebrated architect, employed him to execute orders which he engaged, but Rysbrach at length asserted his independence, and trusted to his own skill alone for success. His principal statues were basso-relievo or alto-relievo, although others were made of the full detached figure. Many of the tombs of the nobility and public monuments which adorn the abbeys and other public places in England, exhibit specimens of this artist's workmanship. Among his best works may be numbered his three statues-Palladio, Inigo Jones, and Fiamingo. These three were executed in consequence of the artist having been piqued at the success of his rival, Mr. Scheemaker, who had executed a splendid monument in Westminster abbey, to the memory of Shakspeare. But the chef d'œuvre of Rysbrach is his Hercules. To produce this statue, he borrowed the head of the Farnese God, and composed the body and limbs from seven or eight of the strongest and best made men in London,